Find Clinical Trials

Utility Actions

News Release

Study finds surgical residents often fatigued

A study involving 27 orthopedic surgery residents suggests that surgical residents are often fatigued during their awake time, according to a report in the May issue of Archives of Surgery, a JAMA Network publication. Medical error is a problem worldwide, and a growing body of literature indicates that fatigue may play a significant role in medical error, according to background information in the study.

Frank McCormick, M.D., from the Harvard Combined Orthopaedic Residency Program and Massachusetts General Hospital, and colleagues, evaluated surgical residents' sleep and awake periods that were continuously recorded via actigraphy, a wristwatch-type instrument worn to record and store data for sleep and awake intervals that can be used to assess individual mental fatigue.